THE GORDONS OF KENMURE are descended from William de Gordon, second son of Sir
Adam de Gordon, the founder of the main branch of the family.He received from his father the barony of Stichell, in the
vicinity of Gordon, and also the lands of Glenkens, in the
stewartry of Kirkcudbright, comprising Kenmure, Lochinvar, and the
other estates of the Gordons in that district, which had
previously belonged to the Douglases and the Maxwells. His
grandson, who bore his name, was the first of the family who
settled in Galloway, and his descendants, rising on the ruins of
the Black Douglases, and sending out numerous branches, gradually
increased their possessions in that district, until they were by
far the largest landowners in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright. SIR
ALEXANDER GORDON, the seventh Laird of Lochinvar, fell at the
battle of Flodden, and was succeeded by his brother, SIR ROBERT,
whose claims, after a long contention before the Lords of Council,
were preferred to those of Sir Alexander’s daughter. SIR JAMES
GORDON, Sir Robert’s eldest son, held the office of Royal
Chamberlain to the Lordship of Galloway, and was also appointed
Governor of the town and castle of Dumbarton. He was killed at the
battle of Pinkie, 10th September, 1547. His eldest son, SIR JOHN,
was, in 1555 appointed Justiciary of the Lordship of Galloway. He
was for some time an adherent of Queen Mary, but in 1567 joined
the associated barons in support of the infant King. SIR ROBERT,
his eldest son, was noted for his physical strength, activity, and
prowess, and not less for his exploits against the English
Borderers and the freebooters of Annandale, who frequently carried
their plundering excursions into Galloway.

SIR JOHN GORDON OF

LOHINVAR, the elder son of this
gallant Gordon, by his wife, a daughter of the first Earl of
Ruthven, was elevated to the peerage, by the title of Viscount
Kenmure and Lord Lochinvar, by Charles I. when he visited
Scotland, in 1633, for the purpose of his coronation. Sir John had
previously, in 1629,obtained from that monarch the charter
of the royal burgh of New Galloway, which was at that time created
on the Kenmure estate. Lord Kenmure was distinguished for his
personal piety as well as for his attachment to Presbyterian
principles, and was the intimate friend of the famous John Welch,
son-in-law of John Knox, with whom he resided some time in France,
and also of Gillespie and Samuel Rutherford. It was through his
influence that Rutherford was appointed minister of Anwoth in
1627, and that famous divine dedicated to the Viscount his first
work, entitled, ‘Exercitationes Apologeticæ pro Divina Gratia,’
&c. The Viscount sold the ancient family estate of Stichell, in
order, it was said, to obtain the forfeited earldom of Gowrie, to
which he laid claim through his mother. It was reported that the
money was paid to the Duke of Buckingham, who had undertaken to
support the claim, but in consequence of the assassination of the
Duke the very next day, the Viscount both lost his money and
failed in his object. The report, however, does not rest on any
satisfactory evidence. Lord Kenmure died in 1634, in the
thirty-fifth year of his age. Rutherford, who attended him on his
deathbed, wrote a tract, entitled, ‘The last and heavenly Speeches
and glorious Departure of John, Viscount Kenmure.’ Lady Kenmure,
the Viscount’s widow, who lived to a great age, took for her
second husband, in 1640, the Hon. Sir Harry Montgomery of Giffin,
and was a constant correspondent of Rutherford.

JOHN
GORDON, the only son of the first Viscount, died unmarried in
1639, and the title passed to his cousin, JOHN GORDON, grandson of
Sir John Gordon of Lochinvar. He also died unmarried, in 1643, and
was succeeded by his brother ROBERT, fourth Viscount, who suffered
severely for his attachment to the royal cause in the Great Civil
War, and was excepted from Cromwell’s Act of Grace and Pardon in
1654. The family never recovered from the blow which they then
received. Their power and prestige were gone, their extensive
estates dwindled away, and the heads of this once great house,
frowned on by the Court and the Government, and ungratefully
treated even by the exiled monarch in whose cause they had lost
and suffered so much, spent their days in obscurity and neglect,
on the remnant of their
patrimonial inheritance. On the death of Lord Robert without
issue, in 1663, the title devolved on Alexander Gordon of
Pennygame, who, like the third Viscount, was a descendant of Sir
John Gordon of Lochinvar. He died in 1698.

His only son,
WILLIAM, sixth Viscount, unfortunately for himself and his family,
quitted his retirement and took an active part in the rebellion of
1715. At the head of a body of a hundred and fifty horse,
including the Earl of Nithsdale and a number of the Roman Catholic
gentry of the western frontier, Lord Kenmure proclaimed the
Chevalier St. George as James VIII. at Moffat, Lochmaben, Hawick,
and other Border towns. He then joined the Northumbrian
insurgents, commanded by the presumptuous and incompetent Forster,
and marched with them into England. Though in the well-known
Jacobite ballad, ‘Kenmure’s on and awa’,’ he is designated ‘the
bravest lord that ever Galloway saw,’ the Viscount, from his mild
and modest disposition, and his want of military experience, was
altogether unfit to be a leader in such an expedition. Indeed,
there is reason to believe that, like his ill-starred coadjutor,
the Earl of Derwentwater, he would never have engaged in such a
foolish enterprise had it not been for the urgent importunity of
his wife, the only sister of the sixth Earl of Carnwath, who also
forfeited his titles and estates in the cause of the Stewarts.
Lord Kenmure fought with the hereditary courage of his race at the
barricades of Preston, where he was taken prisoner and conveyed to
London, pinioned with cords and exposed to the insults of the
populace. He was tried on a charge of treason, found guilty, and
condemned to be executed. He suffered the penalty of the law (24th
February, 1716) with great firmness, expressing his regret that he
had pleaded guilty at his trial to the charge of treason, and
prayed for ‘King James.’

The widowed
Viscountess of Kenmure, a woman of great energy and courage,
hastened down to Scotland by herself, after the execution of her
husband, and secured his letters and other important papers: When
his estates were exposed for sale, with the assistance of some
friends, she was enabled to purchase them, and through her
excellent management, when her eldest son, Robert, came of age,
she handed the patrimonial property over to him entirely
unencumbered, reserving only a small annuity for herself. She died
at Terregles in 1776, having survived her husband the long period
of sixty years.

The eldest son of
the Viscount who laid down his life for the cause of the exiled
family, died in 1741; and JOHN GORDON, the second son, was, by
courtesy, eighth Viscount. He was an officer in the royal army,
and by his wife, a daughter of the Earl of Seaforth, he had a
family of five sons and one daughter. But four of his sons, who,
like their uncles, were in the military service of the Crown, died
unmarried. JOHN GORDON, the eldest surviving son of the titular
eighth Viscount, born in 1750, was a captain in the 17th Regiment
of foot, and in 1784 was elected member for the Stewartry of
Kirkcudbright. He was restored by Parliament, in 1788, to the
forfeited honours of his family, but died without issue, in 1840,
in the ninety-first year of his age. He was succeeded by his
nephew—

ADAM GORDON, a
distinguished naval officer, who shared in the glories of
Trafalgar, and other British victories. He was the eleventh
Viscount in succession, but, owing to the attainder of 1716, only
the eighth in the enjoyment of the peerage. At his death, in 1847,
the family titles became dormant, perhaps extinct; but his estates
were inherited by his sister, the Hon. Mrs. Louise Bellamy Gordon.

I was reading the article on the Gordons of
Kenmure. The article says that Sir Alexander Gordon, who died at
Flodden, was the 7th Laird of Lochinvar. That could not be, as
he predeceased his father. Alexander's brother Sir
Robert succeeded to the title as the 3d Lord Lochinvar. William
de Gourdon, Alexander's and Robert's grandfather was the first
Gordon to style himself as "of Lochinvar." (Burke's Peerage -
1842.)

This comment system requires
you to be logged in through either a Disqus account or an
account you already have with Google, Twitter, Facebook or
Yahoo. In the event you don't have an account with any of these
companies then you can create an account with Disqus. All
comments are moderated so they won't display until the moderator
has approved your comment.